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Main trends in psychology
Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso
72 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1973
About the author
Jean Piaget
281 books703 followersJean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was a Swiss philosopher, natural scientist and developmental theorist, well known for his work studying children, his theory of cognitive development, and his epistemological view called "genetic epistemology." In 1955, he created the International Centre for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva and directed it until his death in 1980. According to Ernst von Glasersfeld, Jean Piaget was "the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing."
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October 22, 2025
AN ESSAY COMMISSIONED BY UNESCO
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are known as "genetic epistemology."
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1970 essay (which was originally published as a chapter in ‘Main Trends of Research in the Social and Human Sciences’ by UNESCO), “UNESCO entrusted me with the volume on psychology… Of course, such an undertaking had certain difficulties, for one can speak of ‘trends in research’ from various points of view… What, for example, is there in common between the methods of a pure experimentalist, who tries to justify each individual hypothesis, however limited or apparently true it may be, by accumulating a great number of measurements and submitting them to a detailed statistical analysis, and a psychoanalyst, who frequently builds up an entire theory on a single clinical case or who looks upon each of Freud’s statements as an intangible truth which neither demands nor even admits of any control? So we will not use a methodological approach to the subject.
“One might proceed subject by subject (perception, motivation, memory, intelligence, etc.) and this is partly what we shall do. By keeping strictly to such a plan, however, one would end by simply writing a small manual of psychology, too short to be anything but superficial. On the other hand, it seemed… useful to compare different authors or schools from the point of view of the kinds of explanations they try to give of the phenomena they have studied. From the pure positivists… to the constructors of general abstract models, one finds a whole range of trends which it is interesting to compare and analyze in outline.
“We establish, then, that there are two constant problems: does the mind retain its own identity independent of its biological origins and its involvement with society, or it is really inevitably confined to these two connecting areas? And is the mind characterized by qualities which are, as it were, static, given once and for all, or does its fundamental nature consist above all in the indefinite elaboration of new structures and new lines of conduct in the course of a constantly constructive development? These are the two problems which we shall find underlying all the perspectives and it is for me a great privilege to present them to readers who belong to the countries which have contributed so much to the progress of scientific psychology.” (Pg. 7)
He recounts, “Whereas contemporary research is very largely conducted with a view to solving a problem and its results [which] are then often expressed in terms of more or less general or abstract models, the procedure that was for a long time adopted was to compile facts, as though the problems of the solutions to them would emerge subsequently. It was possible, for example, to find in a laboratory (even in 1929) admirable documents compiled year after year on the same school children and presenting a very full longitudinal table of their performance as assessed by all the known tests, though their painstaking and scholarly authors had no idea that they were going to get from them. Today a longitudinal study is carried out only to check the necessary order of succession of stages or variations in the rate of development, etc., and only if the problem is precisely stated can the facts selected for this purpose be used.” (Pg. 14)
He explains, the history of ideas as far as the conditioned reflex is concerned, which is a very typical example, shows from every point of view why and how reductionist views are gradually giving way to a trend that involves a dialectic of levels and a relational assimilation of the higher to the lower and vice versa.” (Pg. 21)
He states, “To sum up, we can thus see the trends that have developed from an initially entirely reductionist school, and that the gradual realization of the interactions between the cognitive and the affective, the individual and the social, and the partly mental and the biological leads to constructivism, which is essential to the understanding of development as a whole.” (Pg. 36)
He observes, “It is… striking to note how the evolution of ethology, or animal psychology, has passed through stages parallel to the evolution of child psychology, and without any other direct influence either one way or the other, for ethology is primarily the work of zoologists. After a phase of isolated observation, animal psychology was studied in the laboratory according to strictly associationist principles (theories of learning). Then came the so-called ‘objectivist’ school, the objectiveness of which consisted in a return to study in nature itself, i.e., in the indissociable complex of the organism plus the environment, with analysis being conducted systematically. This led to the rediscovery of instinct and to the uncovering of a wealth of new data showing the complexity of it. Finally, the generation of those who founded this ethology in nature was followed by a second generation suspicious of pure innateness and seeking for an explanation in a combination of innateness and exercise, with emphasis more on the building of structure than on the idea of simple preformation.” (Pg. 42-43)
He states, “As to the theory of the intelligence, all these observations seem to lead to a number of conclusions that it is difficult to ignore. The first is that the intelligence is much richer than the aspects of which the subject becomes aware, for he is conscious only of the external findings of his intelligence, except when, through a systematic and retroactive reflexive process, logic and mathematics formalize, but generally without concerning themselves with their sources, structures whose natural roots are already in the intelligence in action. As to the average subject, he is aware of this intelligence only from its performance, for the operative structures elude him, as moreover nearly all the mechanisms affecting his behavior and, even more, his organism.” (Pg. 46)
He asks, “But is not epistemology strictly speaking of a philosophic nature, which, for certain authors, means suprascientific? Without going into this problem, it will suffice to note (1) that all advanced sciences nowadays deal with their own epistemology without going through schools of philosophy, and (2) that every epistemology, whatever it may be, always has psychology as a referent in certain respects, including cases where it is sought to demonstrate that it is possible or essential to dispense with it. However, it very often happens, especially in those latter cases, that an epistemologist advances arguments of introspective or of common sense in judging psychology, for… everyone believes he is a psychologist; yet a great deal of technical knowledge is required, for instance, to understand the difficulties of any psychogenetic interpretation.” (Pg. 57-58)
This essay is hardly an ‘outline’ or ‘survey’ of all the major psychological trends, but Piaget’s comments will be of keen interest to those studying him.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are known as "genetic epistemology."
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1970 essay (which was originally published as a chapter in ‘Main Trends of Research in the Social and Human Sciences’ by UNESCO), “UNESCO entrusted me with the volume on psychology… Of course, such an undertaking had certain difficulties, for one can speak of ‘trends in research’ from various points of view… What, for example, is there in common between the methods of a pure experimentalist, who tries to justify each individual hypothesis, however limited or apparently true it may be, by accumulating a great number of measurements and submitting them to a detailed statistical analysis, and a psychoanalyst, who frequently builds up an entire theory on a single clinical case or who looks upon each of Freud’s statements as an intangible truth which neither demands nor even admits of any control? So we will not use a methodological approach to the subject.
“One might proceed subject by subject (perception, motivation, memory, intelligence, etc.) and this is partly what we shall do. By keeping strictly to such a plan, however, one would end by simply writing a small manual of psychology, too short to be anything but superficial. On the other hand, it seemed… useful to compare different authors or schools from the point of view of the kinds of explanations they try to give of the phenomena they have studied. From the pure positivists… to the constructors of general abstract models, one finds a whole range of trends which it is interesting to compare and analyze in outline.
“We establish, then, that there are two constant problems: does the mind retain its own identity independent of its biological origins and its involvement with society, or it is really inevitably confined to these two connecting areas? And is the mind characterized by qualities which are, as it were, static, given once and for all, or does its fundamental nature consist above all in the indefinite elaboration of new structures and new lines of conduct in the course of a constantly constructive development? These are the two problems which we shall find underlying all the perspectives and it is for me a great privilege to present them to readers who belong to the countries which have contributed so much to the progress of scientific psychology.” (Pg. 7)
He recounts, “Whereas contemporary research is very largely conducted with a view to solving a problem and its results [which] are then often expressed in terms of more or less general or abstract models, the procedure that was for a long time adopted was to compile facts, as though the problems of the solutions to them would emerge subsequently. It was possible, for example, to find in a laboratory (even in 1929) admirable documents compiled year after year on the same school children and presenting a very full longitudinal table of their performance as assessed by all the known tests, though their painstaking and scholarly authors had no idea that they were going to get from them. Today a longitudinal study is carried out only to check the necessary order of succession of stages or variations in the rate of development, etc., and only if the problem is precisely stated can the facts selected for this purpose be used.” (Pg. 14)
He explains, the history of ideas as far as the conditioned reflex is concerned, which is a very typical example, shows from every point of view why and how reductionist views are gradually giving way to a trend that involves a dialectic of levels and a relational assimilation of the higher to the lower and vice versa.” (Pg. 21)
He states, “To sum up, we can thus see the trends that have developed from an initially entirely reductionist school, and that the gradual realization of the interactions between the cognitive and the affective, the individual and the social, and the partly mental and the biological leads to constructivism, which is essential to the understanding of development as a whole.” (Pg. 36)
He observes, “It is… striking to note how the evolution of ethology, or animal psychology, has passed through stages parallel to the evolution of child psychology, and without any other direct influence either one way or the other, for ethology is primarily the work of zoologists. After a phase of isolated observation, animal psychology was studied in the laboratory according to strictly associationist principles (theories of learning). Then came the so-called ‘objectivist’ school, the objectiveness of which consisted in a return to study in nature itself, i.e., in the indissociable complex of the organism plus the environment, with analysis being conducted systematically. This led to the rediscovery of instinct and to the uncovering of a wealth of new data showing the complexity of it. Finally, the generation of those who founded this ethology in nature was followed by a second generation suspicious of pure innateness and seeking for an explanation in a combination of innateness and exercise, with emphasis more on the building of structure than on the idea of simple preformation.” (Pg. 42-43)
He states, “As to the theory of the intelligence, all these observations seem to lead to a number of conclusions that it is difficult to ignore. The first is that the intelligence is much richer than the aspects of which the subject becomes aware, for he is conscious only of the external findings of his intelligence, except when, through a systematic and retroactive reflexive process, logic and mathematics formalize, but generally without concerning themselves with their sources, structures whose natural roots are already in the intelligence in action. As to the average subject, he is aware of this intelligence only from its performance, for the operative structures elude him, as moreover nearly all the mechanisms affecting his behavior and, even more, his organism.” (Pg. 46)
He asks, “But is not epistemology strictly speaking of a philosophic nature, which, for certain authors, means suprascientific? Without going into this problem, it will suffice to note (1) that all advanced sciences nowadays deal with their own epistemology without going through schools of philosophy, and (2) that every epistemology, whatever it may be, always has psychology as a referent in certain respects, including cases where it is sought to demonstrate that it is possible or essential to dispense with it. However, it very often happens, especially in those latter cases, that an epistemologist advances arguments of introspective or of common sense in judging psychology, for… everyone believes he is a psychologist; yet a great deal of technical knowledge is required, for instance, to understand the difficulties of any psychogenetic interpretation.” (Pg. 57-58)
This essay is hardly an ‘outline’ or ‘survey’ of all the major psychological trends, but Piaget’s comments will be of keen interest to those studying him.
July 19, 2022
Piaget, pelo o que eu li até agora, parece ser alguém que está mais firme no concreto e não faz abstrações reducionistas como é comum na psicologia e na filosofia. Vou continuar a explorar a sua obra.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews